Language Teaching Methods

Language Teaching Methods

1. Elements for effective learning / ESA

   • Study (language acquisition)
   • Activate (give students the chance to put knowledge into practice)
   • Engage (students) emotionally and intellectually

2. LANGUAGE-CENTRED METHODS

   • Concerned with linguistic forms Entail form-focused exercises
     • Language development is more intentional than incidental
       • Language learning is treated as a linear, additive process
   • Grammar Translation (GT)
     • Grammar is seen as 'the building blocks' of the language
     • Learners are expected to read literature in that language.
     • Learning is a matter of memorization of the expert knowledge of the teacher
   • Audiolingual approach
     • Based on behaviourist theories of learning
     • It appears during WWII as a mean to learn languages quickly and effectively
     • Learners are viewed as organisms that can be directed by skilled training techniques to produce correct responses
     • The teacher has a central and active role; it is a teacher-dominated method.
   • Direct Method
     • The teacher is a model and a coach
     • Language as a tool for communication, produced spontaneously
     • Language learning as a skill, developed consciously and through association.

3. LEARNER-CENTRED METHODS

   • Concerned with learner needs, wants and situations Provide meaning-focused activities
     • Language development is more intentional than incidental
       • Aims at making learners grammatically accurate and communicatively fluent
   • The Total Physical Response (TPR)
     • Teaches language through physical (motor) activity
     • Activities include games and skits
     • Provides an enjoyable learning experience
     • The teacher plays an active and direct role and learners listen and perform
   • The Silent Way
     • Students learn the sounds of language from a color-coded chart
     • The teacher remains silent and uses gestures, charts, and manipulatives in order to elicit and shape student responses
     • Aimed at developing independence and inner criteria for correctness
   • Suggestopedia
     • Learners are given a new identity and they work through extremely long dialogues
     • The teacher is both authority and guide
     • Aims to deliver advanced conversational proficiency quickly
   • Community Language Learning (CLL)
     • Students become members of a community and learn through interaction within it
     • The teacher role is that of a counselor

4. LEARNING-CENTRED METHODS

   • Concerned with cognitive processes / Present problem-solving tasks
     • Learners are expected to achieve linguistic and pragmatic knowledge
       • Language development is a cyclical, spiral process, more incidental than intentional
   • Task-based Learning (TBL)
     • Rejects formal grammar instruction
     • Learners carry out an initial task, then witness native speakers performing the same task, to then repeat it more effectively
   • Natural Approach
     • Exposes learners to 'comprehensible input', through the acquisition of grammatical structures which proceed in a predictable order
     • Humanistic approach: engages learners emotionally and cognitively
     • Language is viewed as a vehicle for communicating meanings and messages
   • PresentationPracticeProduction (PPP)
     • Learning as a three-stage skill: cognitive, associative and autonomous
     • The teacher presents the context and situation for the language; then explains and demonstrates meaning and form
     • Language learning follows a syllabus of pre-selected grammatical structures

5. METHOD

   • A set of classroom specifications for accomplishing linguistic objectives, concerned with:
     • teacher and student roles and behaviors
     • linguistic and subject-matter: objectives, sequencing and materials

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